Memory of the Dardanelles
by duckie-force
Summary: As Europe tears itself apart in war, a faltering old nation finds himself reflecting on lost love and personal regrets.


If anyone's been following some of my other works, they'd know that I've been writing short stories using Pokemon characters based on vocaloid songs the last few years. When I was thinking about what songs to write for, I found that I really liked this song and wanted to write for it, but the idea I had had nothing to do with Pokemon at all.

This is that idea.

The song this time around is called 'glow' (as featured in project Mirai). And wow, all I can think about it is how obviously it's a song about grief. Pretty raw grief too. A lot of other songs can be rather subtle, but this one definitely wasn't. And out of all the characters I write for, I felt it matched Sadik's experiences best. So I went with this.

This isn't the first time I've referenced WW1, although the war itself isn't really a focus. This is more a story about a man and his grief and his regrets.

* * *

The end came at last to another day, the rain falling on the rooftops of the small village Sadik had found himself in. Towards the sea, the sunset dyed the clouds a deep shade of red, and the man stared at the sky for a long time, willing himself to move, ignoring the tears which had begun to form on the edges of tired eyes.

He was no longer the gullible child he had been that day, but despite the passing years, the pain of losing her hadn't gone away. It mingled with the aches which had spread throughout his body; signs he was sure were of the end of his empire, and his growing irrelevance in the eyes of the world. This war he was fighting was about so much more than any political ideal.

Sadik was fighting for his life, he was certain of that.

He wondered what she would say if only she could see him now; whether she would laugh at what he had become, or solemnly sympathise. Whether she would see his fate as returned karma for what he had done to her so many hundreds of years ago.

He knew she would give him no answer; if she still existed in the world at all, she would surely save all her energy for helping her brat of a son. Staring at the sunset wouldn't help him at all. Still, Sadik persisted, nostalgia overtaking him. Perhaps it was another consequence of getting old.

Memories flowed freely to him now, as he stood upon land that had once been hers. He could see the two of them together, racing horses across rough terrain. He could remember her words of advice to him, offered when she had seemed so wise and he a foolish young man. She had taught him about her governance of the land and how she had watched empires rise and fall; had tried to lighten his fears about the weight of the world. He had, despite his youth and naivety, truly loved her, and for a while at least, she had seemed to truly love him as well.

Yet, in the end, he had thrown it all away, and killed her, the brightest light in his young life. Thinking back on it with the weight of many centuries, he cursed his old boss for ever giving him that order, to take that great city and not to spare the life of the woman he had loved. It had been like a knife to the gut even then, but at the time, he had thought of it as the price he had had to pay for his empire, his glory, his space in the sunlight.

He knew if he had spoken to her then she would only have told him what he know knew to be true; that such an act only precipitated the start of the lust for control, of the meteoric rise to greatness, of the rapid expansion of territory, that always, always meant only one thing; an inevitable downfall.

He had been on this path towards destruction for a long time, staving off the end with whatever means he could find. Perhaps now the end of it all had finally caught up with him. She would have warned him, had he spoken to her then; but deep down, Sadik knew he wouldn't have listened even if she had tried.

And now, the wound that had been opened with her death had finally festered into an open sore that made him sick of everything around him.

Sadik thought for a moment that perhaps this was her way of speaking to him, admonishing him for all of the mistakes he had made. And if it was, it was fair, for it was what he deserved. But having acknowledged all that, he wished nonetheless that the pain would go away already, and that her memory would fade from his mind.

"So this is it… 450 years and I still can't let you go." Sadik commented to himself. The rain thundering down on the rooftops was his only reply, and the sunset soon faded as darkness fell.

Sadik sat for many more hours in darkness, waiting for dawn to arrive.

When it did, it came with the sound of pounding footsteps and the thundering roar of a battlefield. Sadik ran in the direction of the fire, soon reaching a ridge overlooking a beach below. Two figures caught his attention among the troops; he recognised them as colonies of England's. So the enemy had finally arrived. Well fine. Sadik wasn't afraid to die.

At least, he'd thought he wasn't.

And there was no time to think about it any further. He armed his rifle and aimed it square at the invaders, ready to repel the attack. He would win this battle, or he would die trying.

"Helene… I'm sorry." Sadik uttered as he started to charge.

The fighting waged for months, reaching an uneasy stalemate before the invaders finally withdrew. Sadik had won, but he could feel the cost within his own body. Scars covered him, and dried blood clung to his skin in patches. Weary, Sadik made his way back towards the village where he had started, certain that he had only a limited amount of time left. So what if he had repelled this attack? He knew he was finished.

At the border of the village, a lone figure sat on a rock, waiting for him. Sadik tripped and fell as he passed the obstacle, and found himself being pulled to his feet by familiar hands.

"Helene?" He questioned, lifting his tired head to look the woman in the eyes.

"Hello Sadik. It's been so long." The woman responded to him, pulling his arm around her shoulder and beginning to walk.

"I'm hallucinating this right? This is just me, making you up in my head." Sadik guessed. Helene didn't say anything, only continuing to walk.

"Or maybe… You came to take me with ya." The man continued.

"No. I came to say goodbye." She replied to him.

"Huh. Yeah, I guess. I've done too much to go to where you are." Sadik huffed.

"That's not it. It's because you're going to live." Helene clarified.

"Really? Because I doubt that." Sadik argued, trying to look ahead to see where they were going. The path before them was blurry, and Sadik couldn't make out any of the details.

"You will. You'll live. And you'll live without me. Just as you have. And you'll be fine." Helene reassured him.

"Well, if ya say so… Wait. Why help me? Aren't ya still mad at me?" Sadik questioned. He wouldn't blame her; he still hadn't forgiven himself, so why would she?

"It's not about me being mad. Just because our story had a bad ending doesn't mean it didn't have a happy start. And your story doesn't end here. You need to live. I came to make sure you understood that." Helene answered. She put Sadik down, leaning him against the side of a building. He sunk instantly to the floor.

"Wait. Helene… Don't go." He tried to bargain.

"I have to. But you'll be okay now." She told him.

"Wait. I'm sorry." Sadik spoke once more, grasping her hand as she turned to leave.

"I know." She nodded.

"I miss you." He added.

"I know." She repeated, releasing his hand from hers. "But I'm always with you, Sadik. Use that as a comfort from now on, okay? Not as a knife to tear open old wounds." She stepped back, and Sadik tried to raise his hand to catch her again, but it felt suddenly heavy. Helene seemed to fade away, blending into the twilight as Sadik's eyesight blurred until all he could see was varying shades of red.

Time passed, and Sadik slept on, the wall he had been propped against soon replaced with the warmth of a bed. Gupta couldn't tell whether he was sleeping soundly or whether nightmares plagued him. There was only one thing he could ascertain.

"Looks like the sick man of Europe's not dead yet." He commented.


End file.
